THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 64% 
ed fprings are more than double its quantity; and being 
arrived under the hill whereon ftands: the church of Saint 
Michael Sacala, about two miles from its fource, it there 
becomes a ftream that would turn a common mill, fhallow, 
clear, and running over a rocky bottom about three yards 
wide: this muft be underftood to be variable according to 
the feafon ; and the prefent obfervations are applicable to 
the 5th of November, when the rains had ceafed for feveral 
weeks. There is the ford which we pafled going to. Geeth, 
and we croffed it the day of our arrival; in the time of my 
converfation with Woldo about the fath. 
Notrurne can be more beautiful than this fpot ; the fmall 
rifing hills about us were all thick-covered with verdure,efpe- 
cially with clover, the largeft'and fineft I ever faw; the tops 
of the heights crowned with trees of a prodigious fize; the 
ftream, at the banks of which we were fitting, was limpid 
and pure as the fineft cryftal; the ford, covered thick with 
a bufhy kind of tree that feemed to affect to grow to no 
height, but thick with foliage and young branches, rather 
to court the furface of the water, whilft it bore, in prodigi- 
ous quantities, a beautiful yellow flower, not unlike a fingle 
wild rofe of that colour, but without thorns; and, indeed, 
upon examination, we found that it was not a {pecies of 
the rofe, but of hypericum. a 
From the fource to this beautiful ford, below the church 
of St Michael Geefh, I enjoyed my fecond victory over this 
- coy river, after the firft obtained at the fountains themfelves. 
What might ftill be faid of the world in general no longer 
applied to me :— 
4Ma2 Nec 
